This post has
36
Replies |
2
Followers

Indeed, and although MJ has given her answer to my question, I'm still waiting for yours. I understand that you want FL to stop doing various things it has been doing, but I'm asking what you want FL to do instead.

Well, SineNomine, I'm familiar with the question, and how it plays out. Many, many times ... business world exec. "Now, exactly how do you undo years of neglect?"

Personally, I wouldn't try to 'change Logos' ... it works fine for the pastors. People would squeal. I'd quietly start anew in a couple of test evangelical churches, and I'd target Bible study and how folks work together ... in church, and away from. How women study ... they're more group oriented and structured. Guys tend to look more like Logos ... a study leader, cup of coffee and a clock. I'd include transportation planning, home repair, child care, and indirect medical support. Oh, yes, a food pantry. Does that sound radical? All the things Christians can (and do) share in.

Well, if all you can see in church software is slicing/dicing, money management, and power points, then you're right.

That's my point - that's not all I see in the software. I see every book I studied in seminary on a tablet smaller than a trade paperback. I see an electronic library that has some of the greatest works from every era in church history. I see commentaries, devotionals, systematic theologies, dictionaries and encyclopedias. I see more English translations that I can shake a stick at. I see critical editions of both the Hebrew and Greek scriptures, along with grammars, lexicons and study aids.

What I do with it is on me.

EastTN (which if indeed one of the stars on the Tennessee flag, and the most nicest area in the lower-48), I'm not decrying the gorgeous Logos for pastors. I'm speaking about the other 99 at your church.

Thanks to the shoutout to my home state! I think you've put your finger on the key issue here. Logos isn't written for the other 99 in the congregation - it's written for pastors, seminary students and scholars. That's why it's so complicated and expensive. I wish it were simpler and less expensive, but there's a limit to what you can do there and still meet the needs of the current target audience.

There is clearly a role for bible software that meets other needs. My sense is that some of the other vendors have programs and packages that are better suited to the average congregant. I wouldn't be surprised if FaithLife made an effort to enter that market too at some point. I'd like to see that, but I also think it would be a difficult trick to pull off well. A stripped down version of the Logos program wouldn't work, and it would take a design team with a clear - and very different - vision of a program to pull it off well. While I suspect some of the same core technology could be reused, I doubt the same people could both programs well.

I've heard that the women's groups are much more interactive/dynamic. They might read part of a book during the week, and discuss it for the study. I'd assume little to no technology used, since I don't generally see these people interacting with technology at other times.

The pastor might use a computer or laptop, and project it to show a YouTube video, but that's about it tech-wise.

I think we have one seminary-educated church member who uses BibleWorks for his personal study. Don't know of anyone who uses Logos. (I offered the free Fundamentals to a friend, and they weren't interested, so I gave it away to someone outside the church.)

Can't really see anything like Proclaim being used, as anyone with a smartphone turns it off and puts it away during service.

Denise:

I'd include transportation planning, home repair, child care, and indirect medical support. Oh, yes, a food pantry. Does that sound radical? All the things Christians can (and do) share in.

The church has a van, nursery (during service), food pantry, and resource room, but none of them use any form of software. People use the telephone to arrange things like rides.

I can't see FL making inroads at that particular church, even with some radical new approach for church members themselves.

I can't see FL making inroads at that particular church, even with some radical new approach for church members themselves.

MJ listed an excellent selection of opportunities. (Not sure about that parishioner stuff ... smiling). I grew up in a church where we could nail a church headed straight for hell, if it had a kitchen. I guess I'm on that very sluppery slope.

But religious software largely represents that same fundementalist mindset of separating 'church worship' from believer community. And then holing up for a long winter. Jesus (and Paul, bless his heart) seemed oddly interested in people on their way up.

But yes, Petah. We can safely assume Logos will find another dataset to roll out, as they battle Accordance for the residual market.

Hey Denise, I have been using logos for over 12 years. The only thing logos does is help us learn more about the bible. If that makes it a small market that's ok but I believe Jesus and Paul would be in favor of learning the bible.

I have very little interest in learning "about the bible" - something that Logos does do. My interest is in getting to know the Bible and letting the Bible shape me. There is a very major gulf between "knowing about the Bible" and the "knowing the Bible". The first is the task of the scholar; the second is the task of the would-be mystic.

Orthodox Bishop Hilarion Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."

Hey Denise, I have been using logos for over 12 years. The only thing logos does is help us learn more about the bible. If that makes it a small market that's ok but I believe Jesus and Paul would be in favor of learning the bible.

Hey Matthew

12 years is a long time. I suspect Jesus and Paul discussed considerably more than studying, no? Why limit yourself?

Hey MJ. Well I don't think the software is going to shape you, or any software. That is between you and God. All any software can do is inform you about the bible and the opinions of others.

Hey Denise, Well I am sure their was some personal conversation but this Paul was instructed to write down. It always escapes me why someone always thinks that God couldn't have given His whole and complete Opinion (the only Opinion that matters) in the bible.

I have very little interest in learning "about the bible" - something that Logos does do. My interest is in getting to know the Bible and letting the Bible shape me. There is a very major gulf between "knowing about the Bible" and the "knowing the Bible". The first is the task of the scholar; the second is the task of the would-be mystic.

I don't think the two poles of "scholar" and "mystic" exhaust the possible approaches here. There's the "servant" who wants to know the will of the Master, and the "adoptive child" who wants to get to know the Father . . . and doubtless others. In my mind the two really fundament divides are first, do you want to learn about the Bible primarily as a work of ancient literature, or do you believe it has a message that is directly relevant to your life, and second, do you see it as a purely human work, or do you understand it to be the word of God.

My guess is that by "scholar" you meant approaching it as a purely human work of ancient literature, and by "mystic" you meant approaching it as a personally relevant word from God. I just think "mystic" may have some additional connotations for some of us who would agree with you about the nature of Scripture and the importance of getting to know it.

Hey MJ. Well I don't think the software is going to shape you, or any software. That is between you and God. All any software can do is inform you about the bible and the opinions of others.

Hey Denise, Well I am sure their was some personal conversation but this Paul was instructed to write down. It always escapes me why someone always thinks that God couldn't have given His whole and complete Opinion (the only Opinion that matters) in the bible.

Hey Matthew ... I was referring to Jesus and you. Paul and you. If memory serves, the text only mentions studying the Bible (jewish Old Testament) once. Believing and behavior seem to be the overwhelming criticalities. Not worshipping the text.

As for your comment to MJ, actually 'delivery' does matter. Absent that, we could stop wasting so much money on pastors. Pastors, software, paper, papyri and even wayside inscriptions are simply delivery.

Personally, I wouldn't try to 'change Logos' ... it works fine for the pastors. People would squeal. I'd quietly start anew in a couple of test evangelical churches, and I'd target Bible study and how folks work together ... in church, and away from. How women study ... they're more group oriented and structured. Guys tend to look more like Logos ... a study leader, cup of coffee and a clock. I'd include transportation planning, home repair, child care, and indirect medical support. Oh, yes, a food pantry. Does that sound radical? All the things Christians can (and do) share in.

Hey MJ. Well I don't think the software is going to shape you, or any software. That is between you and God. All any software can do is inform you about the bible and the opinions of others.

If software can't shape you, then neither can books... like the Bible. (Why? Because books can be read using software.) Nor can people be shaped by TV programs, the six o'clock news, movies, video games, card games, podcasts, blogs, phone calls, social media, etc.

Nonetheless, I think I understand your point. In Pastores Dabo Vobis, available for Logos here, Pope St. John Paul II wrote, "All formation, priestly formation included, is ultimately a self formation. No one can replace us in the responsible freedom that we have as individual persons."

If he's right, then products from FL, present and future, can never remove from individual congregants/parishioners their agency in "growing[ing themselves] in the light of the Bible." Nonetheless, future products from FL might be more broadly effective in that endeavour if they approach the task in significantly different ways than do Logos/Verbum, Proclaim, etc., now.

"NONEs" sounds to me like exactly what YHWH would finagle as we approach the end. If Will has it right, and these disaffecteds and disconnecteds are open to potential Truth but uncommitted to the historical "how it's done" due to the feckless ham-fistedness of a Church Under A Curse, then I am finally seeing a glimmer of hope for how He manages to pull off the prophetic program. An Unbelievable Work is "unbelievable" primarily to those who have well-entrenched opinions. Ticks rarely reorient, and He is setting up for a reorientation that is effectively oceanic. In prophetic perspective, "His people" equates with "Jerusalem" which equates with "Egypt"...and the end time exodus that pales the old one into a barely-held memory will follow the same prophetic structure: the System-oriented elders who couldn't make the requisite adjustment dropped like flies and the "relatively" unpolluted new generation will step up and finally get the ball across the Jordan.